Injustice Mobile Review

I have decided to make a review on the game Injustice: Gods Among Us for mobile devices. I have had spent a lot of time playing the game in my spare time and will give my overall thoughts on the game. The mobile version of the game was released in April 3rd, 2013 on IOS and November 21st, 2013 on Android devices. The game was developed by Netherrealm Studios who also developed the console version of the game as well as the Mortal Kombat games.

The game is a single player fighter with online multiplayer capabilities and has challenges that you can get to unlock characters and make them more powerful by levelling up in fights, using spare character cards to promote them, unlock gears which gives additional buffs and credits to upgrade tour characters special attacks. The aim of the game is to defeat your opponents team of 3 characters by dealing as much damage to take down their health bars. This game doesn’t feature a story mode so it doesn’t actually have a story to flow; although, it follows the console version so people that have played the story of the console nothing is really different and can understand the character’s importance. Characters are split into 3 different card types; bronze cards, silver cards and gold cards. Bronze cards are the weakest set of characters but the easiest to get and gold cards are the strongest yet the more difficult to get. Bronze and silver cards are easily purchasable through the shop and can be rather cheap to buy (bronze cards being cheapest and cheaper to promote). You can buy some gold cards from the store but they can be rather pricy and some of the more stronger cards can only be unlocked in challenges or multiplayer. You have an energy limit for characters which stops you from constantly going in fights but each character has their own stamina bar so if one team has run out of energy then you can just swap the characters.

You get a tutorial when you first boot up the game. Tapping the screen does a light attack, repeated tapping will cause the character to do a light combo, at the end of a light combo an arrow will pop up telling you to swipe in a particular direction with success of doing so causing an additional attack known as a combo ender. Swiping the screen will cause the character to do a heavy attack and (like the light attacks) swipe numerous times to perform a heavy combo. Light attacks are faster to perform whilst deal less damage and heavy attacks deal more damage but are slower to perform along with not having a combo ender. Pressing to fingers on the screen will cause your character to block which reduces the damage taken from attacks.

There are 3 bars at the bottom of the screen: these can be filled by attacking the opponent or getting attacked by the opponent. Blocking an attack doesn’t generate power. Filling up the bars allows your character to perform a special attack. The first special is the weakest yet the bar will always be filled before the other specials are available so it can be used more often. The second special is a lot more damaging but it takes longer to fill than the first special. The third bar is the Super Move. It takes the longest to fill; however, it’s the most powerful attack and is unblockable so your opponent will take the full impact of the move. Some specials have additional benefits as well. Some characters specials can cause DOT (Damage Over Time) to their opponent which adds on to the damage received from the special. Some can power drain the opponent which drains the opponents special bar so that it takes longer for the opponent to be able to use special attacks. There are also some specials that have a chance to stun the opponent making them unable to attack and block your attacks.

(Special attack)

(Super Move)

As you may see by the special attack image that there is a target reticule on. This is because special attacks have a minigame that determines how much damage is applied to the opponent with the lowest being 100% and the highest being 200%. The targeting minigame (in the image) requires you to tap the screen to stop the line in the centre to do the most damage (it a matter of timing). There are two different types of minigames where you have to tap the screen, one to fill a circle bar and one to fill a square bar and keep it filled until the move is performed. Finally, there is a swipe minigame where you have to swipe the screen in a direction quickly to increase the amount of damage dealt (and the hardest to reach max damage in my opinion). Super moves don’t require you to play any minigames to deal damage to your opponent and, in single player, opponents can’t perform their super on you.

There are various different characters that you can unlock in the game. Individual characters and characters that are alternate costumes set as a character. All of the characters are different and unique in some way… in SOME way. They can give a unique playing experience. The alternate costume are rather similar but have enough to make them stand out and provide a unique playing experience whether it being; a different combo ender, a different light/heavy combo, an altered special 1, a new special 2 or their abilities.

Each character has their own ability, they have something that can give them the edge in a fight. For example, Jessica Cruz can extend her special 2 attack by one hit per Green Lantern member on her team which adds combat effects to her opponent. Her combo ender also has a chance to summon Kilowog to stun the opponent. This is her exclusive ability that can give her team an edge in the battle. Every character has an exclusive ability that can help their team win the fight and are unique to the them so no character feels exactly the same. For some characters, the ability can be the main reason for using a character over another or a costume over another. Antimatter Sinestro and Green Lantern Sinestro along with Khandaq Black Adam and Regime Black Adam are a prime example of this. The two Sinestros have damage and health difference as well as a different ability but besides this they play pretty much the same. They don’t have any different animations which is rather disappointing since the two Sinestros and Black Adams are very few characters where the two costumes have exactly the same move set. I usually stick with Antimatter Sinestro and Khandaq Black Adam since they are more powerful and find their abilities better than their counter part.

The first mode available when you first boot up the game is the play mode. This mode puts you into the tutorial and you can play stages to try to level up your characters and earn credits to upgrade your characters or buy new characters.

Beating all the stages (having all of the boxes ticked which happens when you beat a stage) then you will get a random character. The main purpose of this mode is to level up characters and get credits but it’s also fun to just try out new characters and get to grips with how they play.

Next is challenge mode. Challenge mode is where you need to complete a series of fights to unlock a gold character card. You need to beat 5 sets of 12 fights, each with their own requirements for playing the challenge such as only being able to use bronze cards or must have a character on your team.

Defeating a certain amount of these challenges will give you a certain reward and defeating all 5 challenges will unlock a character then reset all the challenges on a harder difficulty. There are 3 difficulties that the challenge will be in, you start on normal then beating the challenge will move it to expert difficulty then nightmare difficulty which will give you a better reward once fully completed. Beating normal difficulty will only unlock a gold card of that character. Beating expert difficulty will unlock a gold card of that character and a random uncommon gear card. Finally beating nightmare difficulty will unlock a gold card of that character and rare gear card that is specific to that character. Each section of the challenges change how much energy is required to get into battle. Challenge 1 and 2 require 1 stamina bar, challenge 3 and 4 require 2 stamina bars, and challenge 5 requires 3 stamina bars. This can be a bit of an issue when trying to get characters and I’ll explain why later in the review.

Before I move on to other modes, lets have a look at gears. Gears are equipment that you can assign to your characters for additional benefits and buffs that will help your team get the edge in battle. They are rated on their rarity. The more rare the gear is, the more powerful it is with 1 star being common and 4 stars being the most rare. You can upgrade the gear 10 times before you can level the gear up which increases that gears star rating as well as give an additional buff (you can still upgrade the gear 10 times after, also it’s why some gears are 5 star even though the highest gears are 4 star). You can level up gears by having the required materials which can be obtained by playing Survivor mode or shattering gears as well as require a certain amount of credits to level them up. 1 and 2 stars are rather easy to obtain either through Survivor mode or beating expert mode of challenge mode or even being on multiplayer (you just need to press on multiplayer to get them when the multiplayer season ends). 3 star cards are more rare and have an additional ability when they are assigned to a specific character. Say for example the Bulletproof Batsuit that is seen in the challenge image, if you assign that gear to any Batman character then Batman would get an additional ability that wouldn’t happen if it was assigned to someone else or it wasn’t assigned. They are unlocked in beating nightmare difficulty of challenge mode, playing multiplayer and reaching a certain percent (usually when the unlockable is a character) or by playing Survivor mode. Finally, there are 4 star gears which are really powerful. They have 3 buffs (usually, Ibistick and Batmobile have 4) to them (once fully evolved) and can really give the edge in the fight. They are mostly obtained when playing online multiplayer (the most… sure way of getting them) as well as playing Survivor mode which has some exclusive gears and gear sets (gears that give extra buffs and abilities when a character has other gears equipped that is part of that set). There is also a booster pack where you can purchase to unlock the gear using in game currency.

Next up is Survivor mode, this mode is where you take part in a series of fight to earn as much rewards as you can. Each fight you win can get you either; double credits that you naturally earn, a gear card, an augment card, any of the fragments required to level up gear or last laugh tickets for the roulette minigame that can unlock more augment and gear cards when you cash out of Survivor mode. There is no stamina limit, your limit is your health bar. Fights get more challenging and you unlock more rewards but your health bar carries over from each fight and as soon as a character is knocked out, they are unavailable for the rest of Survivor mode. You can pay for a small health boost before the fight starts if you think that a character is on the urge of being defeated; however, you can only use the health boost once per character. If one of your characters is knocked out then you can swap them out for another character. You can only swap out 3 characters however, which means that once your team is defeated once all the swaps have been used, you are defeated and lose any rewards that you have earned. Once you have finished Survivor mode (either cashed out or have been defeated), you have to wait 24 hours before you can try again so you can’t constantly retry. You can pay in game credits to try again but the amount of times that you can do so is limited.

Now we move on to what is my least favourite mode of the game. I really don’t enjoy online multiplayer. Part is because I’m personally more found of single player than fighting people who have had more experience and spent more time on the game so that they have stronger characters and better gears. But the main reason is because I tend to get put up with people who have really overpowered characters on their team with abilities that make them a challenge in itself or really powerful gears that are really annoying to deal with and you don’t stand much of a chance against. People will use Raven and Regime Killer Frost since Raven take down 3/4 of your health without even hitting you (her ability allows her to swap health with her opponent when she has less then 25% health) and Regime Killer Frost makes you unable to do any good healing to your characters. There are also a lot of people that use Injustice 2 Superman who is invincible to the first special attack that you do to him and this resets if he tags out then back in. There are also gears that can make fighting painful. Astro-Harness is on of the gears that makes fighting really irritating. Any special attack that the person that has the gear equipped can apply 5-10% critical damage to the opponent. Any lethal attacks received may cause a shield that will absorb 20-40% of damage. Finally (and the main reason why I hate people using this gear) when the person with the gear starts/enters the fight, reaches 50% health and reaches 10% health, they get a shield that makes them completely invulnerable to attacks for 3-5 seconds. They get a shield where they can completely ignore attacks for a certain amount of time. That time may not seem long but in fights it feels like a long time and can be enough to make you unlikely to win. A lot of people have this gear and it is really annoying to not be able to do anything to hurt your opponent, they don’t even just respond to the hits and it is irritating.

There are also a set of powerful gears that, when applied to certain characters, can make them super overpowered which makes defeating them almost impossible. The main example is Luchador Bane. His ability allows him to stun the opponent when he tags in and has a temporary increased damage boost. With the Cloak of Destiny, League of Assassins Adept Knives, and Ibistick, Bane can almost completely wipe out your team with just a special 1 (and my team is really powerful in their own right with max elite and level without the breakthrough bonus). If he uses this special then the character getting hit will be knocked out and my other team mates will be almost completely defeated.

Next mode that is available is the Breakthrough mode. This mode allows you to boost your characters so that you can level them up more and promote them more. In order to play the Breakthrough requirements. The characters used must be at least level 50 and elite 7 (max stats without the breakthrough). You must have at least one character that hasn’t been maxed out with the breakthrough boost in order to play. Each day the breakthrough changes to what card types that you can promote, bronze cards, silver cards, and gold cards. Bronze and silver cards you can use any characters; however, gold breakthroughs you can only use a set character that you can promote. You need to complete 3 fights to beat breakthrough. Starting it takes all 10 stamina bars from your team and you have 2 standard fights then the last fight is a boss fight against Ares (this version isn’t currently a playable character). Your health from each fight carries over from each fight like Survivor mode and if you lose a fight then you will be casted out and have to start over. Ares has an attack that can instantly kill your characters if you don’t get the middle of the aiming minigame to block the attack. Thankfully the line that you need to time to get in the centre is rather slow so timing isn’t difficult. The main issue that I had when fighting Aries is sometimes my block decides to not work at times, usually when he does a special attack, this doesn’t have much affect on the outcome due to having good gears assigned so I can get health back but it is really annoying.

There are a collection and store menus which you can get to from the main menu. Collection is how it seems. You can view your collection of the characters that you have unlocked, special attack upgrades that you may have got from packs, gear chards that you have obtained, and support cards (cards that you can purchase to give a character a boost). The store can be used to purchase packs, characters, credits, support cards, and promote characters (you can also promote characters by pressing on their character card in modes and collection). If in collection/store, there are tabs that let you go to the other without having to go back to the menu. You need to be on collection/store in order to be able to go to S.T.A.R. Labs which is where you can apply augmentations that you may have unlocked in Survivor mode. These augmentations can give a slight increase to a characters health, damage, critical hit damage, critical hit chance (critical hits do a certain percent of bonus damage on all attacks depending on the chance to hit it and the level damage), and give level up boosts that makes your character get close to fully levelling up.

Injustice mobile is a really fun game and I have had a fun time playing this game. The animations are really good with some special attacks being really fun to watch, I don’t experience much crashing (on my phone, it crashed a lot on my tablet which is why I stopped playing on it), the characters are really fun and unique to play as and I would recommend giving this game a shot to get your own views on the game. However, there are some things that rather bother me and I think that could be added/or improved about the game. First of all, there is an occasional glitch where the opponent can perform their special attacks at the exact same time as you. Since your character is invulnerable when performing a special move, this means that the opponent can ignore your special and all of its affects. If your opponent does this and they have a longer special attack duration say Jessica Cruz’s special 2 (which is even longer with other Green Lantern members) once your special attack ends, you will be taking damage from the opponents special as the invincibility frames end once the special ends and your opponent is still in the middle of it which results in you taking more damage. This glitch has happened on numerous occasions, single player and multiplayer. It can be really irritating and cost people the fight which is rather unfair.

Another improvement would be to make some of the gear cards a little less over powered. Things such as 3 invincibility shields for one character in a fight is too much. Either make the shields happen less or have the opponent respond to the hits so they get pushed back or knocked down but don’t take damage would make things a bit better. If the opponent also has John Stewart Green Lantern on their team then that may result in another invincibility for that character and an invincibility shield for John Stewart and the third member. That would be 5 invincibility shields for a team. I also think that their should be a pack where you can purchase multiplayer exclusive rewards. You can get multiplayer exclusive character in the most wanted pack but it costs 600,000 credits with a chance to get the character you want in multiplayer or any other character in the game. You may also get the same character you want three times so you may end up with 3 Batman Beyonds or Animated Harley Quinns. I would like a pack like the challenge pack where I can spend a certain amount of credits to get a random character that is only available online. WWE Immortals has a pack with only multiplayer characters in with the challenge exclusive characters having their own pack so I think that this would also be a good inclusion (WWE Immortals have the same developers as well).

I would maybe say that the last improvement is release more alternate versions of some of the other characters. We have 10 Batman characters, 10 Superman characters, 6 Wonder Woman characters, 3 Nightwing characters, 3 Batgirl characters, 2 Killer Frost characters, 1 Shazam character and 1 Aries character. Other characters need variety too. This can be rather annoying because some of the characters are rather fun and seeing more variations of them can be fun. It’s also annoying since challenge mode sometimes may require these characters on your team. If you are on challenge 4/5 with this requirement then you will have to rely on energy recharges (due to not having a replacement for them) and if you have no energy recharges then you will have to wait about 11 minutes for 1 stamina bar to recharge (and that’s with support cards to reduce the time limit). And since challenge 5 require 3 stamina bars, you may end up waiting over 30 minutes to do a fight, taking a lot longer to be able to unlock the character which isn’t fun.

The biggest problem is that the people who will pay real life money for in game content will have a much easier time with the game than people like me who prefer not to pay in real life money and try to work for the characters.

$20 dollars for a character, gear and some in game credits may be worth it but you probably find other stuff that might be more worth it such as DLC for the console games or buy other mobile games to play. Overall, it’s a really fun game with some tweaks needed. If you are looking for a game to just pass the time then give it a shot, it’s free to download, you may enjoy it. If you want to get all of the characters but don’t want to spend in real life currency then you may have a difficult time getting through the game. It takes time to get better and improve the characters you have first.